


When the Water...

by Leah (Taste_is_Sweet)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s01e15 Before I Sleep, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Leah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the water comes rushing in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Water...

***

In the end, this never happened.

But in the beginning:

***

He told Elizabeth to get to the spaceship bay, with the Major. He'd said he was going to try to open the bulkheads that had slammed shut all over the city, trapping expedition members inside.

She had told him to follow her, not to wait. But they had both known he wasn't going anywhere. Not so long as there was something he could try.

Now, though, now Rodney McKay is standing on the balcony of the control room, watching the sea rush in. Bulkhead doors have closed in here, too, cutting everyone inside off from the rest of the city. He couldn't get to the ship bay now, even if he had time.

He told Elizabeth he found a roof hatch in the bay, and he was going to try to open it. The sea would pour in, but at least that way maybe the ones who made it into the ships could get out, maybe get to the surface. He has no idea if the space ships can even function underwater.

Rodney has never been so terrified in his life--his life, which is about to end in seconds, as soon as the water reaches the control room. Already the gate is half-submerged, and Rodney can see bodies, the other people who were trapped in here with him and Peter Grodin.

Peter is just standing there, staring at the water. There's nothing more he can do. The bulkheads won't open, there's no power for the gate... Rodney is sorry he didn't order him to follow Elizabeth. At least that way he might have survived.

Rodney tears his eyes away from the water and back to the datapad he's holding, forcing himself to work, to concentrate. He's doomed, he's a dead man, but there are people in the spaceships now who might get out if he can do this. Who'll live.

He really wants Elizabeth to live. He likes her. She's smart, and funny, and puts up with him. He enjoyed getting to know her up at the Arctic base. He would have liked getting to know her better here.

And the Czech, the Czech whose name he can never remember. He's a good guy, great with machines. He shouldn't have to drown because Rodney can't get the fucking roof to retract, when the schematics are *right there* on his little screen and all he has to do is hit the correct point, the right combination of commands.

The air is cold now, taking on the cool of the water. He's shivering, or maybe that's just fear.

Absurdly, a line of a song runs through his head: *New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't wanna swim*. He'll never hear that song again, he thinks. And then how just this morning he was safe at the SGC, more excited than he'd ever been in his life. And now his life is over.

The water is climbing the stairs. The salt smell is very strong. Maybe this connection...

Rodney hopes the Major will live, too. John Sheppard. The man is annoying as hell--arrogant, overly casual, especially for the military. His hair is insane, and he not only has the ATA gene, but can use it so well that it set Rodney's teeth on edge with jealousy. He wanted that so badly. He wanted to have the gene more than anything.

Now he'd settle for living through this, but that's not going to happen. But maybe Sheppard will, if he's in one of the ships. Rodney heard him tell Elizabeth that he can fly anything. Rodney hopes that wasn't just bragging on his part. If he can only get the roof open...

Maybe he and Sheppard would have been friends.

But it's too late now. The water is lapping at his knees, wet and uncomfortable and very, very cold, and Rodney is so terrified he's kind of numb with it, like part of him refuses to believe this is happening. He's still working on the pad, until it shorts out when its connection to the console drags in the water, and then there's nothing he can do but wait and step back from the balcony edge, as if that will make a difference, and then climb onto one of the consoles, because he wants so badly to live, and this will give him seconds more of air and warmth and life.

He misses his cat. He wonders if Colonel Sam Carter will remember him.

Rodney thinks of the SGC back on Earth, if they'll ever know what happened; if they'll discover another Zed-PM maybe a year from now and open the gate only to find the entire city flooded. Rodney wonders if his body will still be there, what it will look like. He hopes his corpse won't be too horrible.

The water is up to his waist now. He doesn't know where Peter is. He didn't get the hatch open, which means that everyone in the ships are still trapped. They'll drown too, but slower, when they run out of air. And he's so sorry. So terribly sorry.

*I don't wanna swim...*

It's incredibly cold. Breath-stealing cold. And Rodney doesn't have that much air left. He's treading water, trying to keep his head up, being dragged down by his waterlogged jacket and boots. He should have taken off his jacket, except it's so cold. But he wants to live, and he keeps breathing, keeps his head up, and then as he's just about bumping the roof it suddenly occurs to him that the ships *themselves* must have a way of opening the hatch. It only makes sense--the pilots wouldn't want to depend on someone being in the control room to open the ceiling for them.

He wishes he'd told the Major that. Wishes he'd thought of that earlier. Sheppard seems smart enough, maybe he'll figure it out on his own--

And then the air is gone, and he's so terrified he can't even think, and this is it, it's all over, all gone, and the world around him is gray and blue and so very, very cold and he's still trying to swim, still trying to get out, because he's alive and he wants to live and he's fighting for air...

The water is cold. His ears are roaring. The sound is like the sea.

He tastes salt.

 

END


End file.
